Identification

Title

How often does it really rain?

Abstract

The perception about whether a place is a nice place to live often depends on how often it rains (or snows). The frequency relates to how dreary the weather appears, and it is the duration much more than the amount that clouds perceptions. Yet, information about the frequency of rainfall, or precipitation in general, is spotty at best. Here, we analyze a new near-global (60°N–60°S) dataset at hourly time scales and 0.25° resolution. The dataset, the newly calibrated Climate Prediction Center morphing technique (CMORPH), enables comparison of results with 3-hourly and daily data, which is what has previously been available, and seasonal aspects are also examined. The results are quite sensitive to both the spatial scales of the data and their temporal resolutions, and it is important to get down to hourly values to gain a proper appreciation of the true frequency. At 1° resolution, values are 35% higher than for 0.25°. At 3-hourly resolution, they are about 25% higher than hourly, and at daily resolution, they are about 150% higher than hourly on average. Overall, near-global (60°N–60°S) precipitation occurs 11.0% ± 1.1% (1 sigma) of the time or, alternatively, 89.0% of the time it is not precipitating. But outside of the intertropical and South Pacific convergence zones, where values exceed 30%, and the arid and desert regions, where values are below 4%, the rates are more like 10% or so, and over land where most people live, values are closer to about 8%.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d79g5qh2

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2018-02-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact